今天, 12bet官方研究所发布了一项新研究, showing the correlation among characteristics of communities—home values, college graduation rates and racial composition—and critical factors of small business success like profit margin and cash liquidity. 通过分析1的收入和现金流量.400万家小企业， "Place Matters: 小型企业 财务状况 in Urban 社区”  finds that less than one percent of communities that are majority-black or Hispanic had small 企业 with a median profit margin above 20 percent, compared to 40 percent of majority-white communities.

"Understanding the ways in which community characteristics correlate with small business financial outcomes is critical to developing policies that actually help America’s small 企业,” said Diana Farrell, President and CEO, 12bet官方 研究所. "By leveraging the firm’s granular data to see the specific challenges facing small 企业 at the ZIP code level, we hope to inform place-based policies that recognize the unique and inter-connected characteristics of communities to help create greater opportunity for more small 企业."

While many local policies are directed at the small business sector, city-level policymakers lack empirical data on the financial health of the sector at the ZIP code level, especially for the approximately 80 percent of small 企业 that have no employees. 另外, little research has explored how the industry and socioeconomic characteristics of a community correlate with small business outcomes.

报告的要点包括:

• Small 企业 in majority black or Hispanic communities have significantly lower profitability and cash liquidity than 企业 in majority white communities.
  • In over 88 percent of majority black or Hispanic communities, 利润率中值为15%或更低. Only 35 percent of majority White communities have median profit margins below this threshold.
  • There are industry differences across communities – small 企业 in majority black and Hispanic communities are overrepresented in restaurants and repair and maintenance—industries with higher exits and lower growth—and  underrepresented in healthcare, 高科技, 及其他专业服务.

• Small 企业 in communities with few college graduates have profit margins 10 percentage points lower and a cash buffer less than half that of those in communities with many college graduates.
  • The typical small 企业 in a community where less than 25 percent of residents over the age of 25 are college graduates has a profit margin of 8.4%和10%.6个现金缓冲日, while the typical small business in a community with more than 75 percent college graduates has a profit margin of 19 percent and 21.3个现金缓冲日-差10天.6和10个百分点.分别为7天. 
  • Small 企业 in communities with low home values also have lower profit margins and cash liquidity. The typical small business in a low home value community had a profit margin of 9.7%和11个现金缓冲日, while the typical small business in a high home value community had a profit margin of 18.4%和17%.8个现金缓冲日-相差8天.7和6个百分点.分别为8天.

• Cash liquidity is a critical predictor of small business survival and growth.

  • While most small 企业 are profitable, many have limited cash liquidity. Seventy-six percent of small 企业 in the report’s sample are profitable with a median profit margin of 14 percent. Fifty percent of small 企业 have less than 15 cash buffer days – the number of days of cash outflows a business could pay out of its cash balance if inflows were to stop – and only 40 percent of small 企业 had more than three weeks of cash buffer days.